Radical plans for Britain to introduce a "pay per mile" national road charging scheme will begin with a major pilot scheme in five years' time, the transport secretary, Alistair Darling, announced today.

In a speech widely trailed in the media, he set out the government's plans to reduce the UK's chronic car congestion with the world's most ambitious satellite tracking system.

Buoyed up by a survey today showing that only 16% of motorists would object to carrying a "black box" satellite tracking system in their car, Mr Darling said the introduction of a nationwide "pay as you go" system could take 15 years, and require political and public consensus.

But he warned: "Future generations will curse us if we fail to deal with the problems we will face very soon."

The likely charges will vary according to location and time of journey, from around 2p a mile on rural roads, to £1.30 in built up inner city areas at peak times.

Mr Darling said that a pilot scheme in a "major conurbation or region of the country" would be decided by 2007, and be up and running within five to six years. Full implementation of a satellite system would "span several parliaments."

The benefits of road charging, he said, were outlined in the feasibility study that reported last July and found that a national road pricing scheme could achieve a 40% reduction in congestion with only 4% less cars using the road.

"Public support is important. If you can't persuade the public that there is something in it for you, then we are unlikely to get off the starting blocks. So building a consensus is therefore important," he said.

Singapore and Stockholm already operate electronic road charging based on satellite technology, while London has pioneered a congestion charge based on CCTV licence-plate recognition.

Today's plans, which have cautious cross-party support, are far more ambitious and envisage a nationwide pay-per-mile charge, possibly billed monthly to drivers, by around 2015.

The controversial proposals, mentioned in passing in Labour's election manifesto, have also received the guarded backing of transport lobby groups.

A spokesman for Transport 2000, Steve Hounsham, said: "Road charging is the way forward to deal with the threat of gridlock. It is a fairer system of taxation and provides the opportunity to control congestion and also increase the cost of motoring to reduce traffic.

Sue Nicholson, the head of campaigns for motorists' group the RAC Foundation, said the scheme was a potential solution to the increasing traffic congestion.

"It's certainly worth talking about. It's potentially a way forward out of the congestion problems that we face," she said. "Providing this tax was substitutional to fuel tax and road tax rather than additional and provided we had some other guarantees then I think, for a lot of people, this would be a tempting option."

Although transport was not an issue addressed in depth during the election campaign, Labour's manifesto stated: "Because of the long-term nature of transport planning, we will seek political consensus in tackling congestion, including examining the potential of moving away from the current system of motoring taxation towards a national system of road pricing."

There are currently about 30m vehicles registered in the UK, up from 20m just 15 years ago. According to the RAC, the UK has the longest commuting time in Europe at an average of 45 minutes per day, with the average distance having increased 17% in the past decade to 8.5 miles.

The Department of Transport's own figures on the general transport situation in the UK show that in 2003 bus and coach fares in the UK were 34% higher and rail fares 36% higher in real terms than in 1980. Over the same period, the cost of motoring decreased by 9% despite a 7% increase in fuel costs.

Today's Mori survey for an IT consultancy firm found only 16% of motorists insisting that nothing would make them accept a tracking device in their cars as part of a road-charging scheme.

Others said they would be encouraged to install a "black box" if it would also help emergency services locate them after a crash (27%), give them discounts on road-user charges (24%), allow them to avoid repeated payments for road use (21%), help reduce their insurance premiums (20%), relay traffic information to their car (15%), provide proof of payment (13%) or provide directions and information about places of interest (9%).